10 Apr 2012

Anfield legend John Aldridge has hit back at former Reds striker Milan Jovanovic for dissing the city of Liverpool, and for advising his Anderlecht team-mate Matias Suarez to avoid a move to Anfield.

A few days ago, Jovanovic - who was effectively Rafa Benitez's final signing - made it clear that he didn't enjoy his time in England:

"I shed lots of tears in England. I felt unhappy every day over there.

"London is a nice place to live but everywhere else is depressing. I have advised Suarez not to move to Liverpool.

"They'll throw a lot of money at him but he should opt for Italy"

The Serb's comments enraged proud scouser Aldridge, who tore into Jovanovic in his column for the Liverpool Echo, accusing him of 'disrespecting' the club and the city:

"I couldn't believe it when I read that Milan Jovanovic has been slaughtering Liverpool. Jovanovic said he spent most of his time crying when he was at Liverpool and felt unhappy every day in the city.

"Well, I shed a tear every time I saw Jovanovic walk out on that pitch. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near our football club because he wasn’t good enough"

To be fair to Jovanovic, it sounds like he was just making a general (benign) comment on English culture/weather/quality of life rather than specifically dissing Liverpool FC.

Jovanovic scored two goals in 18 games for LFC, but never managed to find the net in the Premier League. This suggests Aldo is right that he wasn't good enough, but he was in and out of the team so much that it's hard to make say one way or the other.

To be brutally honest, if I had the choice of swapping Andy Carroll or Stewart Downing for Jovanovic right now, I would take it.

weather,quality of life, he was born in yugoslavia!!! my god I know liverpool has its moments but fuckin hell you dont here of the locals kicking around doing a bit of ethnic cleansing!! Jesus, fuck me i went to war for 25 grand a year, never mind liverpool for 90 grand a week!!!

I'm not one for slating players myself but I'm sick of so called football experts like , Lawro , Keegan and Chris Waddle telling us Carroll will come good .. I just can't see it happening , in fact , you would be hard pushed to name a worse no 9 to ever represent the club

Who knows, if Jovanovic could play in Rafa's team, he could have come good. But he was signed by Rafa and played for Hodgson's team, and Hodgson didn't even know how to play Agger, Johnson or Meireles... They were 'too creative' for his liking.

But his moaning is of course laughable. Should have left without any attention from the Liverpool side though... looks a bit too defensive from Aldo.

I'm curious to know on what basis you would swap Jovanovic for Downing and Carroll. He was on a reportedly higher wage than Downing and Carroll and that was one of the main reasons we sold him. I think he was not a bad player, he seemed to have good vision, but was mostly played on the wing rather than as a goal poacher, and that comical attempt at a diving header vs Arsenal must have done his reputation no good either.

The biggest problem I think LFC have been having recently is not playing to the strengths of our players, mainly because they have been played out of position. We seem to buy players and not know how to utilize them well.

I like Aldridge at least he says what many fans think.Unlike :John Barnes,Alan Hansen,Mark Lawrenson whom have all failed to criticise Kenny Dalglish when it's deserved.Aldridge is a Liverpool fan not a Kenny or Rafa fan...the same cannot be said of Barnes, Hansen & Lawernson.How Hansen has critised Arsenal,Man City & Chelsea all season but NOT ONCE criticised Liverpool is beyond me.

Even Gary Neville criticised Man United this season in his Sky Sports role and in his column.

Jovanovic was deployed on the left wing for some strange reason, so he was in and out (mainly out). But free transfers was what we were reduced to at the time. May have been better out and out striker but never got the chance. Bet he would have done better tha AC.

I'd swap Carroll maybe but not Downing. Maybe with someone eager to get on the end of crosses instead of falling all over the pitch, we would see Downing contribute more assists. He was brought in especially to provide width and crosses and especially for AC9(I'm copyrighting this) but if he's no where near the box what does Downing do? Hopefully we'll see Downing's true worth next season when he has someone else at the end of his crosses/runs

Slightly off point here but my friend was talking to John Aldridge in a pub in Ireland a little over two weeks ago. When he asked him his opinion on Carroll as a striker, he basically said he should of never been bought I the first place not sure how close Aldo is to the club or Kenny these days but I think within Liverpool they realise they have bought a dud.

Don't fret too much on what Jovanovic is saying. The lad (Matias Suarez) must be another bunch of crap otherwise he wouldn't be playing in Belgium. We need players who play in a top league not sunday league!

You clown, how time passing helps the rose tinted view. Jovanovic was useless in every performance that he wore the red shirt, and clearly had no place at our club. He was also too old to improve. Not the case with Carroll, Henderson or Downing.

You really will say anything to undermine KD, who you clearly want out, as well as anything he is associated with. Jovanovic was a terrible signing, and you know it, god knows what you would have said about him if Kenny had signed him.

he laughed all the way to the bank, he was a crap player, a cheap import, how he dares to say that, (if he did say it) is out of order, lets hope Suarez takes no notice, if any player comes here and does the business he will be a hero, if not he will cry in his hotel room aahhh! big tart!

i have noticed that no-one has chose at any point, or at least no-one i have seen, to ever compare benitez's signings to kenny's (in his second spell) i thought it might be intresting to see what people thought so did the research myself. The following is not taking into account the prices paid for the players as that is irrelevant but rather the players success at the club. Also i have only included players who were bought to play first team football or youngsters who made first team apperances.

Now this is obly just over a 50% success rate in signings but that number drops dramatically when you included the endless list of youngsters that benitez signed that never quite made the grade. I feel i have also been very flexible with the terms of success with certain players (crouch, fowler, aurelio, benayoun and maxi) but there is also a case to be argued that a couple of players were not flops ( Sissoko, Riera, bellamy and Aqualiani) but were just mis-used or not given a chance, an opinion i am sure many have, but even with these possible changes, benitezs sucess in the transfer market is still well below the 50% mark. Now look at dalglish.n This is taken from his second spell in charge and again only players who have played or were bought to play first team football.

Again we see it is just over 50% but if you take into account kenny's first spell in charge this number greatly increases (rush, barnes, beardsley, mcmahon to name a few). Again i accept that many will have their own thoughts on weather suarez and coates are on the right side and i respect that opinion but i believe they are on the right side.and even if you do change their place, kennys successes in the transfer market in his first spell ensures that he still remains with a rate well above the 50% rate.I suppose my point is that Kenny has only just began to form his own team in the grand scheme of things and that if people are calling for his head based soley on the successes of his signings then they need to see the bigger picture as i believe the facts speak for themselves. YNWA.

benitez maybe working overtime now with his "agents" to get him a new job. But no one is going to forget how he dismantled the team. At least the bosses at Inter had the benefit of seeing what he did here to sack him before he took Inter apart for "not supporting him enough with transfer funds".

What is it with you, Jamie. It seems you can't even write an article about Jovanovic without criticizing the our current players. Talk about being disrespectful! I respect you for making sure that the comments on your articles is kept in an appropriate langue and without personal attacks, but every article you poste has the same agenda and conclusion. Try to be a little objective for a change. Embarrassing!

Are you sure you still want Jovanovic back?? You can find statistics to back up your fundamentally flawed arguments. You are very good at cutting and pasting, however, Jaimie you have no idea about football.

Just cos he played for Lfc he thinks he has right to comment on everything. He used to slagg Benitez off at every chance he's got. I also think he's thick as I saw him talk on Lfc tv. I'm beginning to hate lots of ex reds now cos they talk so much shit especially him cos he was at Benitez's case non stop. Thicko.

hold on pal,if the rubbish that you have come out with makes sense to you then you should also take into account that the money kenny has spent including player sales rafa never had the luxury of.The fact that rafa made lfc number 1 in europe and kenny has made us a mid table team at best with his financial backing is just NOT GOOD ENOUGH.Ask anyone with a football brain what they think of kennys superstar assembled squad and they'd tell you the players are just not good enough 'kennys players'his best performers have been rafa's players bar suarez and enrique.Playing downing ahead of maxi is beyond belief henderson ahead of kuyt,and signing the plumber from blackpool charlie adam,what a load of garbage championship player playing for a not so long ago european giant is criminal who's to blame kenny FACT.

rafa benitez is the best manager lfc has had in the last 2 decades,would love to see him back at lfc but can't see it happening hope he gets a club where he gets the backing of the owners and sorts out all the twats who criticised him for playing negative football with a two man team LONG LIVE RAFA YNWA.

If I had the chance of living in Milan rather than Liverpool I'd choose the former at the drop of a hat. Let's face it, Liverpool's no London and it's just not an area that's going to keep international players happy in the long run if they're concerned about where they live.

you obviously didnt understand my post and clearly dont have a footballing brain yourself. benitez made us champions of europe but we certainly wern't number 1 in europe, we never faced barca, madrid, bayern munich being european champions doesnt make you the best in europe. if that were the case then under jose mourinho FC Porto were the best team in europe. you are utterly delusional. the point of my post was that we are in a trasitional period where kenny is trying to build his own team. benitez was given the time to build his own team and so should kenny be given time. fact is the football we play is far prettier than anything we played under benitez. listen i didnt hate benitez, in fact quite the opposite, but it would be the wrong decision to turn back to him without giving kenny a fair crack at the whip. Also as point of fact the team that as you say made us number 1 in europe was vastly gerard houlliers team. Secondly the players you mention, kuyt and maxi, didnt exactly hit the ground running at the club did they? why is it that while they were given time to adjust to the club you are so quick to dismiss the chance of downing, carroll, hendo and adam doing the same? they have the quality, you only have to see how they played at their other clubs to know that, so why shouldnt they be given time to 'bed in'! a season is a short amount of time in reality especially when you consider the lengths of their contracts. Fact is every manager makes signings that dont work, including the great benitez, as my post clearly states, But to judge a player after a season is silly, even more son when you consider, with the exception of downing, their reletivly young ages. Downings first season with villa didnt exactly set the world alight but then look at his last, he was arguably the best winger in the country that year. you are typical of todays generation of football fans who expect instant sucess without thinking about how it is achived, you want every player who is signed to be a lional messi or a cristiano ronaldo, someone who is going to dribble the ball round ten men then lob the goalie with a cute flick when what you forget is that messi and ronaldo can also pass a ball 2 yards if it is the best choice at the time they do the things you dont remember well. our greatest teams of the 70's and 80's didnt have 11 of these types of players, that isnt what made us the great club that we were, we just had a squad of 20+ men who wanted to play for the club and were willing to work hard for each other, ok we had the odd world beater in there, your barnes's, dalglish's, hanson's and beardsley's but what would they have achived without your mcmahons, toshacks, rushes, lawros etc etc etc. get a grip and stop thinking that things are so bad when they arn't. ok our league form hasn't been great but as i say we play some great football and at the end of the season we could end up with more trophies than the money rich team of so called world beaters manchester city and at the end of the day isnt trophies that is what will essentially define a club in future years. in 50 years time will anyone remember that the 2011/2012 season was the year that liverpool fc finished 7/8/9 th in the league or will it be remembered as the year that liverpool fc won the league cup (still a historic important competition weather you choose to believe it or not) and possibly the fa cup as well. i know which i will remember. YNWA

Funny, you say Downing and Carroll have scored a combined 3 league goals between them this season, I was almost certain that even you admitted that Jovanovic that the 2 goals Jovanovic scored weren't league goals. Yep, that's exactly what you said, "but never managed to find the net in the Premier League". Carroll hasn't really been given a fair go, like many strikers, he is a confidence player, and his confidence is down and has been down all season because he hasn't been given a run of games. Try giving him a run of 10 games or so and then slate him if he doesn't come good after that. You can't blame Downing's lack of assists for our lack of goals. He sets up a lot of chances but no one finishes them off.

To be a Liverpool fan, we shouldn't be heaping praise on them so blindly, if they aren't up to scratch and deserve to be criticised, then we should criticise them. As fans, if someone good happens, let them know, if someone bad happens, let them know

Oh come on, Benitez was in charge for a lot longer and although he signed a lot more players, he never had the transfer kitty that Dalglish has had. Had Benitez had've had 100mil+ that Dalglish has had, we would have had players like Dani Alves, Rafinha, Cristiano Ronaldo (when he was at Sporting Lisbon), among others. You can't take Rafa's youth signings into consideration and had it not been for Rafa, we would have still had a youth system in the dark ages. As a player, Mauricio Pellegrino may have been a flop, but he was never brought in for his playing capacity, he was brought in for his coaching, and in a coaching capacity, he was instrumental in integrating the zonal marking system, making us one of, if not the best defensive side in the Premier League. When Rafa was in charge, he had to make his transfer policy a bargain basement type thing because of the funds available. When dealing with cheaper players, it is really a hit and miss thing. You have also put in players in the flop category like Soto Kyriakos, who was certainly not a flop. Bolo Zenden also wasn't a flop. At the end of the day, the amount of successes Rafa had is more than enough to make up a football side, with players in every position. KK has not had that success. You may then say but KK has only been in charge a little over a year and has only had 3 transfer windows in which to deal with. Then let's have a look at how Rafa went in his first transfer windows. There are at least 4 players he got in his first 3 transfer windows that can be regarded as successes, Reina, Alonso, Garcia, Aurelio

We certainly were number 1 in Europe, that is a fact, brought on by stats over a 5 year period, so not Houllier's side. And if we are going to go down that path, during KK's first reign, he inherited Joe Fagan's side. We did face Barca and beat them on the way to the CL final. We did face Real Madrid and beat them 4-0. Under Rafa, we regularly made at least the Quarter Final and made the Final twice in three years, winning it one of those times. So, yes, we actually were the number 1 side in Europe, and we were feared in Europe. Under Rafa, we were also a top 4 and more times than not, a top 3 side in the PL. The respected Spanish journalist Guillem Balague has been quoted as saying that with the budget Rafa had, that realistically, we were a top 6 side, so for Rafa to have us playing in 4 competitions and challenging in all of them, we were well and truly punching above our weight. Under Rafa, I was expecting wins and was disappointed when we got a draw. Under Hodgson and now KK, I would like to get wins, but I don't expect them to win anymore.

Isn't it funny how people used to say we had a two man team under Rafa, yet when we finished second and scored more goals than any other team in England, we did so with those two men being injured for most of the season. For all those people who slate Rafa for not playing pretty football, it may not have been the prettiest, but Rafa set up his strategies to the strengths of our squad and brought a winning mentality to the club, something that despite the pretty football we might be playing now, we don't have. We don't have the killer instincts that we had under Rafa

Could you back up how Rafa dismantled Inter because as far as I know he inherited Mourinho's ageing squad and when he was fired it was still largely the same players who were still on Inter's books. All the subsequent managers have also failed simply because the last significant invesnrment was under Mourinho who also had inherited the defending champions from Mancini.Milan and Juve are inesting and therefore replaced the under-invested Inter as the Italian top dogs

jamie i read your stuff alot, and in general i agree with most, but to suggest you would pick that donkey jovanovic over downing and carroll, well this bad season must really have affected ur mental state! albeit they havn't b good this season, its not just them, the team as a whole has underperformed. the crossing quality has been poor and doesn't suit the big man. downing....well i just dont no, the season before at villa, he was brilliant, just needs confidence!! jovanovic was crying tears of joy that we were stupid enough to pay him 100k+ per week!!

Jamie strikes again,you would pick Jovanovic over Downing and Carroll? I think you need to go to Optical Express. Carroll has been performing well of late and looks as if he will come good,hes only a young man. As for Downing I agree with you, he has not performed but swap him for Jovanovic? No way! Jovanovic was never good enough for LFC so move on and give our current players a full season then criticise them

are u kidding? He is a LFC supporter more passionate than most and has an opinion. As for knowledge, more than most and not afraid to say the things that should be. In Kenny I do not trust. Be an ambassador!

Obvious talent? How can you possibly say that about a man who is incredibly slow-moving and slow thinking - a fatal combo for an alleged striker. Also, despite his height he is very, very ordinary in the air. Did you ever see Hateley or Toshack head a ball? I did. The sort of thing Carroll couldn't even dream about.

Jaime, I like your style of writing and your statistic analyze, but first- you are wrong here. Carrol ALONE scored 4 this term, whereas Jovanovic never scored in the preimer league. He did score twice on other competitions. Andy scored 3 in other competitions this term.Idk what made you write that comment. You usually do better than that.

As for Downing- he only scored 2 fa cup goals, meaning about the same return for a whole lot more money, more playing time etc.

Diouf was very skillful and when played on the wing he was much better than what we currently have. It is his spitting incidents that had supporters turn against him. But as a player he was a very capable one, who was one of all star team of the 1998 world cup, and was voted twice African player of the year

absurd comment, swap carroll or downing for jovanovic...clearly not the cleverest kid in school, talk about biting your nose off to spite your face. I'm hope this guy isn't a real liverpool fan and is just masquerading as one. What a whinge bag.